A Research Team's Reflection: Growing and Building Together

• In Event: The Future of Researcher Socialization: The Pursuit of Truth and the Role of Research Teams

Abstract

We took space to individually and collectively reflect on the following prompts for our commentary for the roundtable:
• How do research team members conceptualize themselves as scholars before the research team experience?
• How do team members' identities, backgrounds, and lived experiences shape the research team experience?
Each team member wrote a one-page reflection. The faculty member reviewed the responses and then grouped their reactions into themes, which were shared back for additional discussion. We selected two themes to highlight that structured our reflections on the research team experience, (1) progression and (2) evolving understandings of diversity.
The notion of progression came up in numerous responses and took on two varieties. One was individual progression on the research team around initially not seeing oneself as a scholar and then coming to wrestle with what the term means and how one sees themselves relative to their understanding. For instance, one team member remarked, “Looking back on my experience with this team, I can say it has made me feel more like a scholar than any other experience I've had to date. There is something about working on an expedited timeline, getting to see all parts of research, from conceptualization to papers and conferences, that makes you feel like you've done something.” The other variety of progression is more community driven and relational in terms of the team dynamic evolving to better support team experiences. To this point, a team member wrote, “The team also creates a community of knowledge sharing that is very special. Because we are all progressing in different ways and at different times, we are able to share important knowledge with each other. More than that, we share the highs and lows and that certainly makes the challenging times feel easier.”
The second theme concerns the team's diversity and how that impacts our experiences. One team member noted that we are a “diverse team of scholars with varying research experience, educational backgrounds, gender and sexual orientations, professional experience, race and ethnicity, age, and research interests.”. These dimensions of difference shape everything from how we approach our research work, (e.g., “because we all have minoritized identities we center those experiences and a critical perspective in our research agenda”) to how that difference prompts us to stay continuously aware of our own identities (e.g., my awareness (and lack of awareness) of the complexities of the intersection of my multiple identities continues to shape my own experience on a research team, but also the experience of those I am working with).
Our longer commentary will focus on the conclusion we draw from these themes regarding supporting a research agenda and practical implications that foster supportive and inclusive research teams.

Authors

• Maria Acevedo, Duke University
  Presenting Author

• Victoria E. Callais, Loyola University Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Norma Lopez, Loyola University Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Demetri L. Morgan, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• Jonathan J. Okstad, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author